For The Future
by Lazer Cut
Summary: A future to be shaped, by forces and characters know and unknown. All have their roles, given to them by no-one else than themselves, what vision will they pursue, and how will the future be in the end? AU, but based on the current lore. Rated for Violence and possible sexual themes later on. Possible JaycexNida, CaitxVi
1. Piltover Trouble

**Author's note: **This chapter is up to refurbishing, as it was written with a completely different idea in mind. I'll try to update it as I get time, most of the actual plot won't change too much, but details and conversation might. Sorry. The 3 first pages are rewritten from scratch after I uploaded it.

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**Chapter 1: Piltover Trouble**

The future... to him, a word that was loaded with all the meaning in the world. In what direction would it be shaped, and by whom? Would he be able to create the future he desired, or would someone else beat him to it? And what about the more mysterious and unknown parts of the world. The matters that only a few know of, what will the effect of those be?

It was with such heavy thoughts Jayce made his way down on Piltover's main street, more or less oblivious to his surroundings. All the people on the street, the warm sun and the soft breeze, it went unnoticed.

As per his usual attire, he wore a mix of metal and fabric, an armor smartly concealed as casual wear. It was of course his own invention, all from the big metal gauntlet and shoulder-guard that covered his right hand and shoulder, to the chest plate decorated with the symbol of a red gear etched onto a round plate. His proudest invention, however, wasn't his semi-practical armor, but the mercury hammer, or as he liked to call it 'the future of weaponry'. The weapon was as the name implied a hammer, about as tall as him, but hang in a tilted position on his back that made it possible to carry without it scraping against the ground. While it looked massive, and most certainly was, it didn't seem to affect his movement the slightest bit. It gave off the illusion to simply hang there, unaffected by the law of gravity.

After walking in his own thoughts for a while, he arrived at his destination. It was a great stone building with intricate stone work. Symbols of a shield with a star made up of clockwork parts was carved into the matte masonry. He walked up a set of stairs, until he reached two big wooden doors. A sign, hanging above the doors told him he had come to the right place, it read, 'Piltover's Police Department' in bold letters.

Taking a break in the shadow of the building before entering, Jayce stopped to clear his head. He couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness that had set in him, whom never seemed to leave him completely. What he had just gotten knowledge of worried him deeply, especially since it fell under his responsibility for the position he had in the city. A position he had both earned through hard work and taken for himself by his accomplishments

"The Defender of Tomorrow..." He whispered the words out slowly, as he tasted each word and weighed them. To have such a title... it was big. So many put their trust in him, too many for his taste, he was only one man. No-one should have so much responsibility on ones shoulders. He was glad that he wasn't entirely alone in the matter though, thinking mostly on the work the sheriff had done for the city before his time of league admittance.

With his hand on the door, he paused. He realized that he had given no thought to how he should phrase his departure to the sheriff herself. It wasn't just up to him to leave as there were nobody who could fill the 'role' he had in the city, even if that role had proved to be more status and less actual work. In addition he didn't really want to leave, but his duties called to him, and he knew he must.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open, exposing the interior to the warm sunlight. The lobby was filled to the brim with people, some in uniforms, some in clothing that didn't exactly scream 'law abiding citizen'. After a quick visual scan, he found the desk he was looking for in the background of the officers and arrested individuals. It was about in the middle of the room and in a straight line from the door.

Behind the desk, an officer sat slowly scratching his head at a paper he held in his hand, Jayce walked up to him and let out a little cough to make his presence known. Luckily the officer seemed, despite the first impression to be aware, and put up a finger without diverting his gaze from the paper in his hand. With a quick sleight of his hand he wrote down a few fast notes, before looking up.

When the officer looked up, the man froze for a second, and his eyes grew. The pen he had been holding simply fell down on the desk. A little confused at the officer, Jayce raised an eyebrow to signalize it.

"J-jayce?!" The officer snapped out of whatever had locked his mind. To which Jayce responded with an awkward smile, he hadn't been prepared to be greeted so unofficially.

The officer blinked a few times, before excusing himself and started anew, "Ahem... I mean, Welcome to Piltover's Police Department. How may I help you, Jayce?"

"Hey, is the sheriff and the deputy in? I need to have a word with them, it's urgent." Jayce went onto business, as it was best he hurried to inform them so he could be on his way. A thought about their friendship entered his mind about how cold their relationship had been in the time after Viktor's attack and all the other events that had recently happened, but duties before personal pursuits.

"Sorry, they're out at this moment. We just got a hint of a major smuggler band, and most of the force is either out there, or in here interrogating and filing reports." The officer replied.

Knowing waiting for them would cause a significant delay, Jayce pressed on to find where they was, "This won't work, I need to speak with them, now. Where are they?" Jayce was impatient, and gave the officer a harder tone than he had intended.

"I-I'm s-s-orry, but that's c-classified information." The officer replied with a shaky voice.

Classified information... Jayce hadn't thought about that. Of course the police would want to keep the location of such a mission a little in the shadow until it was dealt with. The less that knew, the less that could interfere. What this also meant was that he wouldn't get to speak with them as quickly has he had hoped.

"I can,'t authorize the release of such information without at least an officer's badge presented," the officer continued.

In response, Jayce put his hand inside one of his pockets. After digging around for a while, he finally pulled out the object he had been looking for. It was a golden shield with the imprint of a star made out of pieces of gear on the front. It was similar in design to the sigil on the building outside, but was at the same time different. It looked, more prestigious.

He put the badge on the desk, and with a confident smile and added attention to his tone, he asked, "Will this help?"

The officer picked up the badge, and looked at it for a second before returning it with a relieved smile, "Yes! That'll actually grant you full access."

"Great! Can you show me where they are now? I'm short on time." Jayce motioned towards a big map of Piltover that hung on a wall behind the counter.

"Yes of course, just give me a moment to double check their position and status." The officer said before he started moving some papers around . Within seconds he picked one them up and continued "As I said, they're currently cracking down a smuggler ring of suspected Zaunite origin. The smugglers have their hideout in the warehouse district, which is also where the mission is happening." He said while pointing at a distinct part on the map.

"...and the last reports from the scene indicate that a firefight has broken out between the police force and the criminals." The officer slowed a little down at the last line, and gave Jayce a worried expression.

"Well, let's hope Vi doesn't get too angry when I beat up some of the bandits before she's gotten to them." Jayce tried to cheer the conversation up with some humor about Vi's preference to 'punch first, questions later' tactic.

"Heh, guess she'd be pretty riled up then," The officer chuckled ever so slightly.

"Well, I need to go now." Jayce pushed himself off of the counter and grabbed his badge at the same time. "Take care." He waved to the officer.

"Yes, bye! Jayce, sir!" The officer saluted him as Jayce walked away, to which Jayce responded with an informal half salute, half wave. He didn't even know they practiced the salute formality in the police force, but guessed the officer might have picked something up from watching the Demacian soldiers that he knew practiced the gesture.

Well outside, Jayce let his legs go from walking to a light sprint. One part of him was eager to join in on a battle with his friends, another a little worried about the fact that a simple 'crack-down' had turned into a firefight. It wasn't Caitlyn's style. Deciding he would need to hurry more, he popped out his hammer from it's magnetic holster on his back. It landed, as if guided, right in his hands. With a flick, the hammer began transforming. What had previously been the sides of the hammer head, turned outwards, and a couple of hex-tech guidance antennas poked out from inside the hammer, aimed in direct line with the shaft. Arcs of blue energy surged through the weapon.

With a firm press on a specific part of the trigger, the weapon activated, and shot out two metal orbs that on each side. A split second later, the metal balls crackled, and a bright beam of blue lightning came to life in between. Bracing himself for the acceleration, Jayce ran through.

The next few city blocks were skipped in mere seconds, and the world blurred as he rushed past. Surprised by-standers had to jump out of his way as he maneuvered through them, trying to not hit anyone in his way.

Within a minute Jayce had arrived at the scene, or at least close to the scene. The accelerating effect had worn off by now. Unfortunately, and not so very surprising, a pair of armed officers stood with a roadblock inbetween, blocking off the street that separated him from the warehouse. In the distance beyond the blocked off street, the distinct 'crack' of gunpowder being ignited could be heard.

Not feeling in the mood to bicker about authorization, Jayce got an idea, and shot out a new gate of the bustling blue energy. He ran through, and along with the increased speed, he turned on a part of the shaft of the hammer/cannon. A moment later the weapon responded with a thrust of heated gas out from nozzles that were placed facing downwards, along the bottom of the shaft. With another twist, the thrust increased. Giving the officers who'd just noticed him a confident smile, he proceeded to jump into the air. The lift provided by the miniature rocket engine propelled him in a up and forward trajectory.

The officers did nothing else but stare in state of confusion and amazement as he flew past over them. He made sure to land a good distance away from the roadblock, and then continued with a hurried sprint away towards the warehouse.

Back at the roadblock, the two officers looked at each other, before the shortest of the two asked the other. "Wasn't that... Jayce?" He scratched his head while he kept his eyes on the figure that was fast disappearing towards the scene.

"Yeah think so, but what's he doing here?" the other replied. "He's not with the police, is he?"

"Don't ask me, you know how the league champions can be. Special permissions and all." Jayce had crossed halfway through to the warehouse by now, far enough that he could make an analysis of the situation.

The front of the warehouse was littered with numerous officers taking cover behind vehicles. The officers were dressed in armor with similar aesthetic design to the one he himself wore, but was less customized. Hail of bullets showered the vehicles, forcing the officers behind to keep crouched. He tried to look around to see if he could spot Caitlyn, or Vi for that matter, but couldn't see either. The lack of the long ranged sheriff made him uneasy, as he knew, she wasn't one that went for short melees, that was what Vi liked to do. He had figured he would have see her along with the other officers.

Jayce took of running again, intent on getting in cover with one of the officers so he could ask questions about the whereabouts of the sheriff. Eying a vehicle on closest to him, and pretty far away from the warehouse he set his destination.

The officer behind the vehicle narrowly dodged a bullet, and turned her head with the back facing the safe metal of the vehicle. She looked up just in time to see the brown-haired man with the golden hammer on his back run towards her. With a slide he came to a stop beside her. With heavy breaths and a confused look at the appearance of the famous man she spoke: "Jayce? What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd give the ladies a hammer-wielding hand." He responded with a charming smile to the question.

The officer blushed a little from the attention she got from the man that had been called Piltover's sentinel, and for a second she seemed to forget the situation at hand. Jayce flashed a sheepishly smile at the woman. He was used to have that effect on women at times, however, this was the wrong time, and he needed her attention back to the situation at hand.

"Where's Caitlyn and Vi?" His tone changed to that of a more serious one. He scanned the area in another vain effort to try and see if he could spot either of them. The officer regained her focus, and snapped back to the seriousness of the events currently happening. At the mention of her bosses she made a worried frown.

"They're currently pinned down inside... I think Caitlyn might be hurt... Vi rushed in again without support, and Caitlyn well... she tried to stop her, but got caught in the crossfire." The armored officer's tone made it easy for Jayce to see that it she was distressed at the mention, and he couldn't help, but to share the feeling. He made sure it didn't show, however.

"That might be... problematic. Guess I'll need to do something about it." He shot the woman a calm smile, in direct opposition to his current feeling, before turning his attention to the warehouse in the distance. She simply nodded at the man who now looked out, over the vehicle they used as cover.

Jayce analyzed the situation "Hmm... " He thought aloud. The warehouse had a big garage door that had been opened to the fullest, inside he could see a number of smugglers shooting in two different directions. One against them, the other towards a corner in western part of the warehouse. He could hear the distinctive sound of Caitlyn's rifle from inside, and another woman yelling sharp and angry words in between the cracks from the bullets.

He noticed that most of the smugglers hid behind makeshift cover like vehicles, crates or metal parts. They were put up like a perimeter, effectively giving defense in the two directions necessary, while giving them the ability to fire back.

"Hey, is there a way to get around and behind that perimeter?" Jayce looked down at the officer that carefully looked up from the cover. She seemed awfully careful for an officer, but he reasoned she either was afraid of being shot, which most should be, or she was a rookie. He didn't judge her for it. With his experience from the league, where he couldn't really die, he had gotten a little more careless about cover. He knew, however, that his armor would protect him from most injuries.

"There might be some maintenance entrances in the back, but we are pretty sure they are booby trapped, and they won't take you directly to the smugglers either." She took up a piece of paper from her pocket before rolling it out on the ground. It was a blueprint of the building with a few marks in red, indicating the enemy's position. She pointed towards a number of symbols on the back of the schematic. They were set up by two lines lines a little apart from each-other.

Jayce looked at the blueprint, the doors would take him through a set of narrow rooms, or hallways. If he got caught there not even his armor would stand up to the hail of bullets, so he looked for another way. He noticed that the smugglers were close to a wall on the east side that was drawn with a smaller line than the others. A note on the side said: 'Repaired on 23.4.22 CLE'

"Do you know anything about this wall?" He asked her, putting his finger on the wall. It was situated to the right of a red ring drawn with a marker. He guessed it symbolized the smugglers position.

"It states it was repaired, but I don't know anymore. The thin line might indicate a different type of wall?" She put her head in a slight angle, and looked with a puzzled at the man.

Jayce scratched the back of his head at the idea that had formed in his mind, it wasn't the most elegant way, but it might work "Can you create a distraction?"

Looking even more confused, but trusting to the man, she pressed a button on her arm, and began speaking with a much calmer voice than she showed in her movements "This is private

Reveck, requesting immediate smoke screen on the whole area from my position to the east wall"

Jayce raised an eyebrow to her, a little set out on the fact she was only a 'private' and her sudden initiative at his request. Privates were the lowest ranked in the force, literally rookies. He wondered a little why she had been accompanied an armed intervention at all.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Her tone ran with hint of confusion and a slight sheepish look appeared on her face.

"Oh. Nothing" Jayce shook off the look that had unknowingly sneaked its way to his face. He gave the private a reassuring smile. "Good job."

A crackling noise appeared from the comm device, and a serious and slightly angered man spoke back: "Reveck! What's the purpose of this? You have no authority-" Jayce cut him short, "This is league champion Jayce speaking, consider private Reveck's request as mine"

The private, 'Reveck' breathed a out after Jayce had stopped speaking. She had forgotten about her rank, and what authority she had.

"Yes, sir" the voice replied, it voice was calm, but Jayce could feel a hint of hesitation run in the two words.

A moment later, a barrage of cylindrical canisters with a trail of smoke behind them showered the area. Most of them landed in a straight line from his position to the wall, but some landed outside the line. That would mean the cover was tightest where he needed to run, but it wouldn't give an obvious trail to his destination. He made a mental note to compliment the officers later for their strategic covering.

"Time for me to go, so long! Don't be caught flatfooting now, as Caitlyn would have said, eh?" Jayce nodded a smile at the private before he turned up and skirted out, into the smoke.

His fingers itched for the trigger to transform, or to shot up an acceleration gate, but he knew the energy read-off would reveal him. The officers behind him gave him covering fire for as long as they could see him, with about a quarter of the distance behind him, they stopped in fear of hitting him. The smugglers would most likely already know something was up, but Jayce trusted the officers to try something to not make his smoked approach too obvious.

The run was exhausting and exhilarating, bullets hailed around him like they were rain in a storm. He could feel the impact of some, drilling their way into his armor, but stopped by the defense mechanism before they could tear away at his flesh. Jayce prayed the system would hold.

Within a few elevating moments, he had reached the far east end of the warehouse, and was now panting with his back towards the wall. He joked to himself that he wished Vi had been there with him, as it was her specialty to break through stuff.

While trying to calm his heartbeat, that felt like it was jumping out of his throat, Jayce looked over the the smoke covered area he had just across. He could see small flashes of light, and the sound of bullets cracking the air, showing that the officers had started to trade shots again.

"Guess I'll see if I have learned something from the lady then." Jayce said to himself as he took a few steps away from the wall. On the way apart from the wall he made some slight configurations to the shot he was preparing. The first modification was to see if he could make his attack go off inside the warehouse, instead of just exploding on the wall. The second was to minimize the lethality of the blast, but still have enough power to either knock them out cold or incapacitate them with electricity.

After walking to a distance Jayce judged would be secure enough, he took up a firm stance with the cannon pointed towards the wall. He pressed down on the trigger and felt the cannon charge up, a split second later, it let out a big ball of blue sparking energy. The recoil that was produced, kicked him a small step back. The orb of electricity, moved at a constant, while not exactly fast speed, towards the wall. He smiled, and fired off a wall in front of the shock blast. It was made of the same blue sparkling energy, and was caught in between two emitters.

Normally it would have been gate first, then shock blast, but he was practicing a new method he had found out to be more effective. The shock blast, then gate was harder to dodge, and it was more surprising.

When the energy ball hit the gate it gave of the very specific sound of energy being channeled. Then it increased massively in velocity, before slamming straight through the wall. He took off running after the projectile while yelling to the people inside, "Power slam!"

The area was suddenly lit up in blue streaks of lightning, and a shock wave tore through his body, making him lose his balance. With what had now turned out to be a dive through the hole in the wall, he transformed his cannon-now-hammer, and activated the thrusters. Jayce managed to point the end on the ground in his tumble, and the thrust accelerated him upwards, before stopping mid-air a few meters over the smugglers. He smirked at the sight, most of them were either on their backs, or too disoriented by the blast to do anything other than watch him. He hung in the air for a moment before gravity grabbed hold of him, and pulled him down.

Using the momentum he swung his hammer behind his back, with a tremendous swing, he slammed down on the ground. The entire building seemed to shake at the impact, and bolts of lightning sparked to life around him. They struck the smugglers, and the air was quickly filled with the their screams.

A moment later, after the electricity field had faded, Jayce looked around himself, he was pleased to see all the bandits laying incapacitated on the ground.

From over to the western corner he could hear familiar voices, one seemed to almost gasp out in surprise, while the one gave a 'hmph'. The officers on the outside stopped shooting as they quickly realized that nobody were shooting back.

"Come out, they're out of the game!" Jayce shouted to the voices. Knowing it would most probably be the two women he was searching for.

Slowly two silhouettes appeared from behind the structural support they had used for cover. The first woman was dressed in a variation of the armor that the other officers wore, but seemed more specialized. It was seldom he saw her in her combat armor instead of the short dress she usually wore everywhere else, including the league. On her head, she wore a very distinct purple hat with telescopic sight on it. Out from below the hat, beautiful fluent brown hair flowed down upon her shoulders. Jayce noticed she had a few bloody cuts and some flat bullets embedded on her armor. She was holding her left hand carefully with her right, and drops of red could be seen, slowly dripping out from it. It worried him, but the fact that she was still walking put helped on his worries. 'It couldn't be that bad, right?'

The other, pink-haired woman wore another type of armor, if one could call it that. It looked like the rest of the character: rough. It consisted of tight and slightly revealing clothing, with plates of metal strapped to the outside of her hips. A corset was tightly wrapped around her upper body, with the addition of more metal. On the end of the corset, the end of a pink skirt stuck out. Her shoulders were protected by a couple of heavy shoulder guards with symbols in violet paint painted on. What was most striking with the woman, and with 'striking' he meant more like 'fearsome' or 'slamming', was what she wore on her arms, or rather on one arm now. As if taken straight out of a mining rig, she wore a gigantic mechanical gauntlet. In it's palm, she held another one of the gauntlets, but it was heavily damaged, and barely looked like the first one.

As with Caitlyn she had some cuts and scrapes. Jayce noticed she was slightly limping, and from a red spot on her thigh he could see a small streak of blood running down. Since the discovery of the hex-tech kinetic dampener, the amount of police officers that had sustained injuries from firearms had significantly dropped. The kinetic dampener functioned, simply put, that it exerted a force equal to the kinetic force that was applied by the bullet, effectively nullifying it. It only worked on bullets, however, since most melee weapons had been enchanted or modified to interrupt with the detection system. Another draw back was the easy overload of the system, usually it was the energy source that decided that. Jayce figured she must have come under a lot of fire to cause her system to overload, as he knew from a personal inspection just how much it was able to sustain.

Jayce actually liked the pink haired woman in as opposed to what most would think, she was smart, witty and brave, and while she would never admit it she cared for both Caitlyn and him. He did not, however, like her attitude she often used against them. And he often wondered how Caitlyn managed to endure it over long periods of time.

Vi seemed to be more set up over her damaged glove than to notice him when the two arrived in front of him, Jayce couldn't help but to give them a cocky smile for having 'rescued' them.

"Jayce. Fancy seeing you here." Caitlyn held a friendly tone at the welcome sight of her friend and fellow champion. The smoke outside the warehouse was beginning to dissipate as the conversation began.

"Thought I might drop you two ladies a visit." He smirked at them, and made a slight bow, earning a little laugh from Caitlyn, while Vi simply scuffed her feet at the notion.

"You could have arrived a moment earlier, so that 'Smashed' wouldn't have gotten too beat up! The pink haired woman with the welding glasses on her head spoke back to him through gritted teeth. She pointed towards her damaged gauntlet to state the point.

"I thought you were a 'one woman army'?" Jayce couldn't help but tease her a little. She did it so often with him that he wouldn't let such an opportunity slip away. A moment later he acknowledged to himself it was probably a bad idea to try to rile her any more up.

"It's only because of miss Cupcake here, not letting me do my thing!" Vi pointed with her thumb over to a slightly amused Caitlyn.

"It's you, and your hotheaded head. That did that." Caitlyn tried to argue with her. Vi glared back, and Jayce saw her flex her fingers in frustration. While others may have been worried by that, Jayce knew that Vi would never hurt Caitlyn with intention, no matter how angry.

"Anyway, while it might not seem like we had the situation under control, we had a plan up and running, and since we never called you, I'm guessing there's a second reason you're here?" Caitlyn got to the chase as the trio began walking out to the officers outside. Caitlyn motioned to a couple of officers, and not before long a number officers went past and began arresting the now unconscious smugglers. Jayce directed the two woman over to a medic truck, knowing they had to be pushed a little to receive medical treatment.

"Yes there is a matter that made me interfere with your business. It's rather sensitive and should be discussed in private" Jayce lowered his voice a little, and looked between the two other champions.

"What? You're finally admitting your love to Caitlyn?" While Vi seemed furious over the shot up state her glove was in, Jayce couldn't help but feel there was something else that was bothering her, specifically her, him and Caitlyn.

Both Jayce and Caitlyn glared over to the pinkette with a dismayed look. They understood she was angry about her glove, but such attitude was unnecessary.

"Hmmpph..." She grumbled at them. Keeping her mouth shut for the moment being

"We'll check out with the field medics, and then we'll take this back at the office?" Caitlyn offered to Jayce while keeping an eye on Vi. She felt something was up with the woman, she was acting unusually abrasive.

"Agreed" Jayce nodded. "So how did you end up being pinned back there at all? It's not like you" he couldn't help but shoot a smile at her.

Caitlyn scoffed at him as she sat down in the medical truck, and began taking off her armor "As always I had a plan, but you know how plans work with Vi" she shot a little glare at her partner in justice, who was staring angrily back at her.

"Don't blame this on me! It was your useless infiltrator that messed up!" Vi had begun to strip of her armor plates by now, and a medic, who barely braved to look at the three league champions, began gathering some medical supplies after inspecting their wounds for a moment.

"We still had backup plans, Vi..." Caitlyn had turned her attention away from the medic who was helping her out of her outer armor, and towards Vi for the moment who was holding herself upright on the edge of the truck.

"Mind filling me in?" Jayce looked at the two ladies. They always were like that, logical planner vs 'the heat of the moment'. It never seemed to fail to amuse him a little.

The medic began wiping some scratches with a disinfectant, making Caitlyn shoot a grimace "Sorry..." The medic said. After cleaning the wounds, he grabbed for some bandages and band-aid.

"It's okay" Caitlyn smiled at him before turning her attention to Jayce, who she thought seemed a little amused for some reason. "We had an infiltrator that was supposed to deliver a gas bomb that would knock them out, but either it didn't go off, or the infiltrator got caught, we-"

Vi cut her short and added her own version "-That was when I decided I had to act, the smugglers had become aware of us and we had lost the element of surprise"

"You stormed in against twenty armed smugglers!" Caitlyn snapped at the bruiser.

"You didn't have to follow!" Vi glared back at her.

"I couldn't let you get hurt..." Caitlyn's had turned softer, and she looked away from the both of them. The sudden change in attitude made Jayce's mind twitch a little, he pondered for a moment if he should just let the the situation keep running, or intervene. He noticed Vi looked a little bewildered at Caitlyn.

The medic, who seemed very distraught at invading the conversation that had suddenly turned private looked at them in doubt, but eventually managed to speak up.

"Ahem... Vi. I-if you may?" He motioned over to a seat next to Caitlyn, who by now was covered in various bandages and band-aids. Vi threw a couple of metaphorical daggers from her eyes at him for intruding.

"Vi. Do as the doctor say." Caitlyn said, her voice had returned to normal, but before Vi could take the seat next to her, Caitlyn had jumped off and walked over to Jayce

"Mind if I have a word with you? Alone..." She looked at Jayce before looking back at Vi at the last word. Jayce nodded and they walked away, out of earshot from the truck. Caitlyn turned her head up to the slightly taller man.

"I guess you heard that..." She looked with little sheepish gleam at him.

"Oh, I did hear it." Jayce confirmed.

"Well..." Caitlyn seemed a little lost with her words, which was a very uncommon thing to see in the ever so confident sheriff. The air was filled with a silence as Caitlyn looked away from him, eying an empty smoke canister.

"You like her, don't you?" Jayce finally asked her, he had never seen Caitlyn like this before, and while he felt asking the question might be a long shot, he felt it was the only reasonable explanation for both of their behaviors.

"I'm not sure... She just gets under my skin sometimes." Caitlyn confessed.

"Hey, Vi's a good person. There's always a reason for why people behave like they do. Maybe she rushed in to save your reputation?" He placed his hand on her shoulder, and smiled at her. A little part of him was a little sad. He wouldn't mind getting to know her a little better himself, but now was not the time to think in that direction. The mission he was about to set out on might not fare him well, and the less ties he had, the better.

"Thanks, Jayce. I'm lucky to have you as my friend." She looked at him with a genuine look in her eyes, and a lips that curved upwards.

"What are friends for, eh? Beside saving each other from gun-crazy smugglers?" He laughed a little with her." Now let's go back, before the jealous knives Vi is firing at me turn real"

Vi, who by now, was patched up likewise as Caitlyn stared at them with a frown, directed specially at Jayce. She had a large roll of bandage wrapped around her thigh.

The medic turned to them as they returned, and seeming a little more confident now, he spoke to them "I found no major injuries on any of you. Vi was the worst, a bullet actually managed to penetrate the hex-tech dampening system. You need to check into the hospital for further checks, both of you." He eyed the last words at Vi.

"Thanks" Caitlyn nodded to the medic, who saluted before walking away to another officer with a bloody arm.

The three of them started to walk back to the police department. None really said anything, and while Jayce pretended he didn't feel it, he could feel Vi bore her eyes into him. He tried to figure out something to say, that would let her know he wasn't trying to make a move on Caitlyn, but still not reveal the trust Caitlyn had given him.

It took him a whole district before he found the right words "You know, I'm going on a trip soon. That was the reason I needed to speak to you, both of you" he motioned with his head over to Vi, making sure the woman knew he was talking to the both of them, and not only Caitlyn. It seemed to ease her a little, luckily.

"A trip where?" Caitlyn asked. They had arrived to the front of the police department now.

"A certain jungle," he lowered his voice. It was not unusual for champions to go on trips, either business or pleasure, but he wished to keep it low-profile, even within Caitlyn's ranks of officers.

"I see..." Caitlyn simply answered, she had picked up on the scarcity of details, and hurried her step a little in the direction of her office.

When they arrived, Vi shuffled her gloves a little, as to mention she was still there. She had not really listened too much to Jayce, too upset about the whole glove and Caitlyn incident. Caitlyn closed the door to her office, and locked it when they were inside. She took up the place behind her desk, and gave a notion with her hand towards a few chairs in front of it. Both Vi and Jayce sat down, and put their weapons of the ground. The hammer was put down on the end of the shaft, and was kept silently balancing when Jayce pulled his hand away.

"So, now Jayce, mind telling us?" She smiled at him while putting her hands in up on the desk, resting her head on themselves.

"I'll put it simply. You both know of the arcane crystal I found some time back?" He looked at both of them. Caitlyn did of course follow, but he wondered if Vi was still silently angry at him. He needed her to hear him so that he could defuse her attitude towards him. Luckily he noticed she was following his words, and breathed a mental sigh of relief.

Being watched, Vi felt compelled to answer "That shit that Viktor stole, and caused you to invent that?" She pointed her finger on the hammer that stood upright, the hammer-head was pointing upwards, it seemed like it was defying the laws of nature, there it stood on the pointy end of the shaft.

"Yes..." Jayce went away for a minute, memories of his past clogging his mind. He quickly snapped out of it "It is discovered that, it was not an isolated case..." He looked between the two women to observe their reaction.

"And your source is reliable?" Caitlyn put in, her mind churning over the news.

"Yes, Ezreal was the one that picked up the initial readings, and Heimerdinger confirmed it. I would trust those two with my life" Jayce had great respect for the other league champions. Ezreal for his exploration, and Heimerdinger for his unparalleled genius.

"So where is this crystal?" Vi spat in, her initial anger fading. She knew that in the next few seconds he would say that he was going to leave Piltover for an unknown period of time, leaving Caitlyn all to her. In retrospect she wondered a little why she had fired herself up so much about Jayce's friendly attitude with the sheriff, they had, after all known each other longer than Vi and Caitlyn had. And if he hadn't done something before, he would most likely don't do anything now.

"It's in the Kumungu Jungle" Jayce slightly tapped his pants.

"Isn't that were that cougar girl lives?" Vi looked at him.

"Nidalee, Vi" Caitlyn corrected, earning an eye from Vi

"Yes," Jayce confirmed to Vi and Caitlyn

"Have you tried to get into contact with her? She won't take it easy if she catches you invading her turf" Caitlyn voiced her concern.

"No. I can't. The league would know then, and I need to keep this low. I'm sure Viktor would hear it about it through the league." His voice had turned hard and serious at the name of the scientist that was more machine than man now

"I guess you'll be leaving Piltover then. Is there anything we can do?" Caitlyn spoke on Vi's behalf too, and the pink haired girl glared a little at the sheriff when she did.

"Take care of the city. I might not return from this..." His eyes and tone voiced his seriousness with a hint of sadness.

"Don't you dare die on us, Jayce." Caitlyn's words were hard.

"I'm not planning on it, but this is going to be dangerous" he began to rise up from his chair, while using the balancing hammer to support him.

"Don't you want some help?" Caitlyn asked when he left the chair

"I need to keep this as low as possible" he looked at both the ladies, giving Vi a slightly longer stare to make sure she understood.

"I understand" Caitlyn pushed herself off the desk before going over to the man. She put her arms around him, and gave him a friendly embrace. Jayce was a caught a little of guard, but returned the hug "Take care" she said.

"You too... I'll be going then." He said as he separated from Caitlyn, making sure to not linger too much in front of Vi.

"I'll... I'll walk you out" Vi suddenly said, earning a confused look from the others who by now were standing and looking at her.

"Sure," Jayce simply smiled at her.

"I'll be right back, Cupcake" Vi smirked at Caitlyn. "Just gotta make sure, he actually leaves"

Caitlyn sighed a little at Vi, before she left with Jayce. Her thoughts were that of uncertainty, she hoped Jayce would be able to handle this.

Vi stopped at the exit of the police department, and when Jayce noticed it, he stopped too "Hey, take care now... I know that I might not always show it, but I do consider you one of my closest friends..." Jayce was a little taken back at the sudden show of emotion from the otherwise abrasive woman, but he made sure to not give her a hard time for it.

"Hey, thanks. It means a lot, and I do consider you one of my closest friends too," he gave her a charming smile. "Take care of Caitlyn now, eh?"

"I will, don't worry" Vi smiled at him as he exited the building.

******End Chapter 1.**

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******First chapter done! Or somewhat, I still have to update about ¾ of this chapter, but that will be done another time. Following the mainstream idea of relationships, I've paired Caitlyn and Vi, and don't be too surprised if they get an amount of showtime. I just need to balance the personal drama bit, with the "realm-threatening part".**

******Remember, I appreciate feedback and critique, so voice your thoughts! Even if it's only a few words you'll make my day :)**

******For those wondering, I have named Vi's gloves 'Smash & Smashed'. Making a slight wordplay out of the fact that when she attacks the first punch 'smash' the target, and the second results in it being 'smashed'.**

******PS: Thanks to Kiravu for editing.**


	2. Kumungu Jungle

**Author's note: **New chapter up! Took me a while longer than I would have liked, but I did manage to hold my promise of a chapter per month(that would mean one month worth of time). This chapter is very, very Nidalee heavy. She's one of my favorite champions, and has been for a long time. I had a hard time working on it. It's different writing about somebody who's grown up in an environment so differently than what most of us are accustomed to. As previously, thanks to 'Kiravu' for taking the time to edit this chapter :)

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**Chapter 2: ****Kumungu Jungle**

The sun had just begun appearing on the horizon, leaving the jungle covered in a sheen of refracted brilliance. Small streaks of orange light shot through the ceiling of branches made by the trees, and hit the ground below. A graceful deer stepped silently into the line of sunlight, leaving hove marks on the ground below. It was eying a lush green bush drenched in the radiant glow.

A distance away, hidden in the dense underbush of the jungle, a set of soft paws made a silent approach towards the deer. The owner of the paws, an agile cougar shot out its claws, before retracting them a moment later. It was waiting for the right moment to strike.

The cougar stopped up for a moment, and dared to poke its head very carefully out of a thick bush, and leered at its prey for the first time. It had tracked the deer for about an hour now, and it craved the taste of blood.

The deer was rather large, but still a size smaller than the cougar silently sneaking into position. It was covered by a brown fur that went to an almost white color on the front of it's neck and down on its legs. Behind, on its end, it had a small white tail, reaching no more than down to its abdomen. A pair of antlers that branched out into three and a half offshoots grew out of it its head, beside them were ever vigilant ears.

The cougar moved back from the weed it had hidden itself in, but as it moved backwards a single unnoticed twig appeared under its right paw. Not being able to stop itself, the cougar cringed and crouched as low as it could. The sound had drawn the deer's attention, and it looked over in the direction with its ears set up. The cougar remained dead still.

In a couple of tense moments, with only the sounds of birds above, the situation was locked like that, but luckily for the predator, the deer went back to eating, after determine the fatal decision that there wasn't any danger to be found. The reasoning behind being: that it hadn't smelled anything and no more noises had been made.

Have come into position now, the cougar readied itself. With a growl, the feline launched out into the small orange tinted clearing with immense strength. The deer quickly turned it's head towards the sound, but could only see flashes of yellow fur before it felt a shot of pain rip through its throat.

The enormous force of the impact had knocked the deer over to its side, the predator took a hard bite on the side of its the neck, and held it in place, restricting the airway. The shocked deer made out a horrifying shriek at the sudden pain, but the sound came out muffled due to the grip around its throat. It kicked and twisted with all its might in an attempt to free itself, but with each jerk the sharp teeth of the cougar only ran deeper and deer, until a pool of a red liquid began to appear on the jungle floor beneath them. The predator clenched its jaw tighter on the deer, and a loud 'snap' could be heard from the area between the feline's teeth.

With a last twitch the deer stopped resisting, and the cougar took a step away from its prey. It tipped its head upwards, and closed its eyes. The exact moment it had done that, the air pressure around it seemed to drop, and a whirlwind of leaves from the ground began swirling around the feline. A moment later the cougar was gone, and in its place, a young girl, with sleek and toned muscles stood with her eyes closed and blood running down from the sides of her her mouth.

The young woman had dark-brown hair, formed into a long pony-tail, held up by a strip of tanned leather. She wore a band of fur over her chest, and a loincloth made out of the same material ran down between her legs on both sides. On her wrists and legs she wore forearm-guards and boots made out of a rougher type of animal leather.

Nidalee cocked her head at the deer beneath her feet with a smile full of blood. She was hungry, and she now had her dinner. With a hand she wiped the red liquid off her face, and bent down to grab the deer by its feet. With strength seeming unfitting for such a young girl, she threw it over her shoulders and began walking away.

Nidalee thought about the limp deer she held over her shoulders as she walked back to the area that she had made her 'camp' if she would have used such a word. She silently thanked the deer for the nutrition it would serve her.

She always made sure to thank the jungle for everything it had provided her with. Even though she thrilled at the hunt, she would never do it if it wasn't necessary to keep herself, or the ones closest to her, fed.

"The strong feed off the weak." Her words were directed at the deer on her shoulders, as an explanation for its untimely death.

It was true, it was the way of the wild. She herself had worked hard to put herself on top of the food-chain, and to make the whole jungle her territory.

It took her close to an hour before she arrived at the place she had made hers. Even if she called the whole of the jungle her home, it was at this very spot she really felt at home at. During the time she had used to her site, the sun had gone further up, away from the horizon. The light had changed from orange to a very light yellow.

Underneath a great oak on the other side of a small channel of water a little tawny ball of fur laid and slumbered in the morning sun. Nidalee made out a soft growl that might as well been a meow. The little cub beneath the large tree looked up at its cousin appearing with a big deer over her shoulders. It thought it was unsettling to see her in that other form, it liked the cougar one, so much better, but it was too hungry to pay it any heed.

With a happy meow, the little female kitten ran up to Nidalee, earning a smile from the huntress as she laid the dead deer down beside a fireplace made of a ring of stones and a sticks set up against each other. The cub began tearing away at the flesh the moment the bloody animal hit the ground.

Nidalee growled at the impatient cub, she wanted to try something else for breakfast this time, something she had learned on her adventures outside the jungle. "Wait," she snarled at the furry kitten. She stopped instantly, and took a step back while putting her head at an angle, and looked up to her cousin, asking for an answer.

"I want to try something." Nidalee explained to the cub, who reacted by taking a seat in a sunlit area a meter away, and looking with disgruntled eyes at the huntress as she pulled out a knife from her belt and began gutting the deer. She paid the youngster little heed as she summoned up a fire with sparks from two stones that lit a number of dry logs inside the ring of stones.

Shortly after, the cub was finally awarded for her patience. The huntress laid a leg of grilled deer meat in front of the cub, who quickly indulged herself in the sustenance. Nidalee had taken up a piece for herself and busied herself in eating. She smiled at the taste, "The stone-cave-dwellers had been right" she uttered to herself. "This is better!"

Beside the fireplace, a small stream of water rustled past, before ending in a large, dammed up pond. Another small channel appeared to be running away from the pond, but was nowhere as full as it appeared to be created for. Going along the edges of the pool, a tight wall of stones were set, leaning up against the dirt behind. A number of logs, bound together was lodged between the pond and the exiting stream, keeping the water prisoned.

The bottom of the pond could easily be seen through the clear water. It was only about a meter or so from the surface to the bottom. A big square stone was placed on the ground, against the stone wall, creating a seat. The floor of the pond was covered with an in-countable number of small round pebbles with an unnatural purity to them. Not a single speck of algae was to be seen in the pond.

Nidalee looked over to the pool after taking a last bite of grilled deer. The cub had overeaten, and was now lying on her back warming her slightly swollen stomach in the sun.

With a slight yawn, Nidalee stretched her arms, and pushed herself off the soft grass she had been sitting on, earning a slightly confused look from her drowsy cousin. Without a hitch, her clothes fell limp to the forest floor. The cougar cub, simply looked uninterested away from the weird creature that was her cousin and care-taker, and went back to slumbering in the sun. It wondered if her mother would be coming back from her hunt soon. The cub agreed that her cousin was a better, or at least more efficient hunter than her mother, and while she considered the huntress a part of the family, she never quite seemed to manage to figure her out.

With her bare skin exposed to a slightly cold breeze through her, Nidalee walked over to the pond. She stopped at the edge, and slowly bent over to put her finger into the glass clear water. "Warm..." She purred to herself.

Having confirmed the temperature, Nidalee slowly lowered herself into the sunlit water. Goose bumps appeared all over her body as the comforting water embraced her up, and warmed every centimetre of her skin.

She breathed out as the dried blood from the hunt began leaving her soft skin. Completely relaxed, she began thinking about her past, and with it, the future. It was an odd train of thought to appear in the otherwise so instinctive huntress, but her memories were guiding her, and she didn't put up any resistance.

**Past**

_A loud growl shattered the ominous silence that rested between the dark, tall trees. Swift paws made their way through the dense underwood of the jungle, intent on catching the prey that was running away. The prey, a big deer, was running away for its life, it was faster than the cougar in chase behind had expected. The two were heading towards the outer edge of the jungle. It was territory unknown to the cougar._

_Suddenly the deer took an unexpected turn. The cougar didn't realize it in time, and reacted with a sluggish turn. It made the big fur-covered creature lose its balance, and sent it tumbling around on its side, before slamming hard into a tree on a path away from the deer. The feline gave out a pained yowl when it felt the rough tree make solid contact with its ribcage._

_Realizing dinner had escaped, the cougar shook off the pain, and made its way to its paws. It began turning around in the direction of its home, but suddenly stopped up. A sound, a sound that the cougar had heard before, but couldn't remember, shot through the jungle, and grabbed its attention. Curiosity getting the better of the big cat, it turned to walk towards the source._

_Inside the outskirts of the forest, two young people were busy gathering herbs. They were talking to each other about the toxicity of some. The discussion had almost turned to a heated argument when they were suddenly interrupted by a soft yowl. The words fell silent, and the two young adults gave each other a worried look before they slowly turned towards the source.. What met them, was something they'd never believe if they weren't standing right in front of it themselves._

_A young girl, probably in her late teens, was sitting on the ground before them. She was barely dressed with scraps of leather. Her emerald green eyes were drenched in tears, and streams were running down her cheeks. By the roughness of her clothing and dirt in her hair, it was obvious she wasn't a part of any village, at least what they knew of. They both noticed the big red spot on her side, injuries sustained by a blunt object. Both were shocked at the sight, and neither knew how to approach the situation. The woman of the pair, however, decided for herself that something had to be done, and so, she broke the silence._

_"Hey there, you okay?" The young woman stepped towards the tear-drenched girl that was staring at them with the most sad and confused eyes she had ever seen. She stopped only a meter in front of her. The young man stood back, keeping himself wary of the situation. He was suspicious._

_The girl had pieces of dirt and leaves in her hair, she looked at the woman who had just made the sounds she felt she recognized, but couldn't make sense out of. She opened her mouth in response, but there were no words to be found in her mind. Only a soft yowl left her lips._

_"Can't talk?" The woman tried a smile at the girl. She received a shaking head in response._

_"It's okay, we won't hurt you." Her voice was soft as silk and not even the slightest bit of threatening, but the jungle girl backed away nevertheless._

_"What are you doing, Keela?" The man grabbed the woman's arm and glared at her with his teeth, his eyes never leaving the young girl with the emerald eyes._

_"I'm being friendly." Keela turned her head towards the man. "Can't you see she's injured?" She pointed a finger at the girl._

_The man let his eyes leave the girl for a split second to answer back. "She's dangerous!" The words were shot out of gritted teeth. "Look! Does she look like she lives in a village?!" He pointed a hard finger at the place the girl had been sitting on, but was surprised to find out he was only pointing at empty air._

_"Great! Now, look!" Keela gestured with her hand in the direction she guessed the jungle girl had ran off in. "You scared her away!"_

_"It's better that way." The man turned on his heel, and went back to the herb he'd been working on prior to the interruption. Keela gave a worrying look into the jungle before continuing in suit, giving the man an angry glare as she passed by._

_Nidalee was stumbling through the forest on her feet. Feet... She hadn't seen them in years, much less used them. She was so scared for what was happening to her. One moment cougar, the next a form she only remembered as a past life. The memories flooded her mind at an alarming rate, all of them were painful. The pain it caused her, forced more tears out of tear ducts that would surely run dry if she continued._

_The girl stopped running, and tried to catch her breath. Her eyes were going down on her body, the fur-less skin... It was so familiar, yet alien. She touched it, with her hands. She looked amazed at them, memories of the same hands, only smaller, popped up in her mind. She was reminded how she used them, what they could be used to. So much more fragile than her paws, but so much more flexible._

_She looked up again, her eyes were staring at a nothing present, they were staring at her past, suppressed memories. They were drenched in tears, she had begun remembering, everything... Her name, her past, her parents. Her thoughts got locked in place at the last._

_"N... i...da... lee." The broken words left her soft lips. The moment the last character had been vaguely uttered she experienced a flashback._

_Flashing images of a young couple, so alike the one she had just stumbled into, but still so very different. The man in the memory, he was looking down on a younger Nidalee. Kind emerald eyes and smile of happiness on his lips. Nidalee felt her stomach clench at the eyes. She could remember a younger version of herself staring down into a pond, the reflection revealing the same eyes._

_The woman was standing beside the man, her eyes was a grayish blue, beautiful, but unremarkable. What caught the huntress' attention was her hair. Fluent brown, almost black, it softly danced its way from her head, into a choke on the backside of the head, before falling down on the woman's back. Nidalee felt her insides lock up, more tears forced their way out, dripping silently on the jungle ground beneath her feet. She felt her own ponytail of dark chestnut colored hair, softly whip at her back as she started running again._

_"Why did the memories come?" She screamed inside, clawing on the walls that kept her trapped in the mental torture. It was emotions that had been kept suppressed inside her for years, that finally saw the opportunity to escape. It felt so awful to think again, she'd lived most of her life as an animal of the wild, but now suddenly, she stopped being that. She longed for the thoughts to go away._

_At long last she reached her home in the jungle, the place she usually slept at. Streams of blood were running down from scrapes she had sustained on her legs. It hurt, but not even close to the mental trauma she was in. Collapsing at her feet, she slowly began dulling away into sleep. What met her, was more images of the past she had lost. They forced themselves upon her until she finally submitted, and let them flow unhindered past._

**Present**

Suddenly, a loud sound, muffled by distance, shot through the jungle accompanied with a wave of wind. The gust of wind hit Nidalee straight in her bare chest, and snapped her away from her thoughts. She looked around, down to the tiniest of waves in the water that washed up against her body, to the trees in the outskirt of the clearing that waved with their branches.

Realizing something was up, Nidalee pounced up and out of the pool. Another drop of pressure around her disturbed the waters even more, then, on four muscular legs she took off into the underwood, towards where she thought the sound had come from. The cougar cub who had been asleep under the oak, looked up just in time to catch her cousin running off. She gave a soft meow at the figure now almost lost in the dense jungle. Unsure of what to do, the cub reset in her drowsy position, and hoped the elder would return soon.

Nidalee knew, the general direction the sound had come from. Her paws carried her with graceful speed between the trees. When she had run for a small amount of time, she was met by a large amount of animals and critters running away in the opposite direction. She used their movement to get a closer pinpoint on the source.

Slowly the smell of fire entered her nostrils. The scent got stronger with each stride, and her nose twitched from the strong sensation, urging her to turn. Nidalee, however, ignored the protest her nose was making and began breathing out of her mouth instead. She quickened her pace now that her direction was so securely pinpointed.

It didn't take long before she had closed in on the source of the smell. What met her was something that set her off. The area she was looking at, was a small clearing with two grand trees standing side by side with tightly woven branches, reaching all the way to the ground. A big, completely round and charred hole was punched through the branches. Trails of smoke rose from the burnt leaves. Nidalee wished she could close her nostrils completely off.

Further down, she could see something else. A small fire, surrounded by even more scorch marks and blackened vegetation. A whole little clearing of black growth had been created. Whatever plants had been there before had simply vanished. Nidalee growled at the dark smoke. Her eyes scanned the environment, something, or rather someone had caused this, that she knew.

Without examining the first hole too much, she walked over to the blackened, round clearing. In between the burned grass she could see trails of something else she had seen many times before. It was red stains of liquid, almost invisible on the dark charred ground. 'Blood'. She wanted to smell it, to identify who's blood it was, but the smoke was too strong for her to smell. Instead she followed the blood, it seemed splattered in one direction, like something had impacted. The way the splatter pointed was empty, and confused she looked the other way. There she saw another smaller, but not charred hole go through several branches, with blood dripping from some. At the far end she saw the silhouette of a black creature at the foot of a great tree.

She hurried over to find a creature she had never seen before, and that didn't belong in the jungle. It was black as the sky at night without the moon. The first impression reminded her of a cougar-like creature, a predator, but the creature in front of her was nothing like any cougar she had ever encountered before. A hard carapace covered its shoulders and halfway down to its legs, another piece of hard black bone protected its throat and connected with even more on its back. On each of its four paws it had disproportionately large black, ivory claws. A number of very sharp and very big teeth ran out of its mouth, along with a black substance with a hint of red. Nidalee guessed it was blood from the injuries it had sustained.

She looked closer at the dark, somewhat charred creature. She didn't like it, that was for certain. Even with the wild magics running as veins in the jungle, she knew of every creature that existed. She began to worry about what was going on, and if the beast proved to be an isolated case or if there was something more happening she wasn't aware off.

Intent on finding out what had killed the twisted, black cougar she returned to what she suspected was the start of the scene. The fire that had been burning in the middle had luckily almost died out, she stepped on it with a wet paw as she walked by. The flame hissed for its life before disappearing.

She cocked her head to the side and looked around: The area was dark and charred, but nothing more seemed to be out of place leaving no clue to what had caused it.

Having given up on the black clearing she walked back to the the first charred hole. Looking at the hole and the scenes behind, she could see a correlation between the first breach and the larger charred clearing. It all lined up to the dead creature further away. Like something had been shot in a straight line.

She looked around some more. A tree on the right of the hole stood out, on closer inspection she could see deep gashes run into the wood. Her mind jumped to the creature and it's claws, she figured it had tried to attack something. The ground beneath the tree was trampled flat, and a few steps away, just in front of the charred breach, a couple of weird, almost oval shaped prints dug into the ground. She had seen similar before, they were footprints.

Nidalee felt shocked at the revelation that had, in the end, seemed to be the only logical explanation. Someone had snuck into her jungle without her knowledge. The anger inside her began to boil. The last time someone had entered her jungle, it had only brought her great misery.

Nidalee noticed the footprints ran off in a direction away from the charred areas. She growled and pounced away on four muscular legs, chasing after them.

As she rushed away from the charred woods, her sense of smell slowly started to return. The footprints were loaded with the scent of human sweat, and something else. Like charred wood, but not exactly there. It was like a crackling smell, if she could use such a auditory word to describe a smell.

She didn't need to look at the footprints anymore, the scent alone, was strong enough to carry her towards her target. She wondered to herself what she should do with the intruder, kill it right off, or ask questions, then kill? She decided for the latter, it was important she got more information on the black cougar with the hard carapace, but she had to be careful so whatever she was chasing didn't use it to its advantage.

Not long after she could hear the sound of footsteps, belonging to a person, run ahead of her, but she still was still too far away from seeing it clearly. She noticed a gleam of gold would from time to time strike from an object the person was carrying. She needed to be able to move silently in order to catch her foe.

She darted around the way the person was running, always keeping an eye. From the side she could see the person carrying a big golden, metal object. It was a long, round and thin log ,with a big clump of square golden metal on the top. She noticed the person was not the same as her – a female that was. It was a man. He wore clothes she couldn't recognize, metal and fabric were bound together. There were clear signs of damage by claws on the torn fabric that danced behind the man.

Nidalee ran past him after seeing his course. She placed herself herself to the right, a distance in front of him, and waited for the person to appear. She had deliberately chosen a little clearing as her spot so that she had free way to pounce at him.

It didn't take long before the sound of boots hitting the forest ground was accompanied with the audio of heavy breathing. She noticed the man had brown hair, and in his hands, he held the golden object she had seen when she had run past him. She decided it would be a wise move to separate him from it.

When he was only a few meters away from her Nidalee crouched down into the dirt and readied her muscles. A moment later she launched herself up into the air with a powerful pounce-turned-leap, leaving deep grooves in the ground behind. A loud growl split the air between them as the man looked with shocked eyes over at the fearsome cougar that was in mid-air, only a moment away from flying into him. He tried to pull up his metal object, but was cut short by the immense speed of the cougar.

"Whaaa- AGH!" The man shrieked when she hit him. The golden metal object he had been carrying went out of his hands, and landed many meters away from him. Nidalee used her fearsome strength to push the man down. She sat above him. Her paws were holding him down by his forearms. She bared her teeth in warning to the man, and noticed the shocked look in his blue eyes. He was clearly distressed by the cougar, but they didn't seem scared. Only a moment after his impact with the ground the shock had faded, too quickly for Nidalee's comfort. He looked around himself and up to the cougar with the bared teeth, his eyes went over to the gold covered metal object several meters away from him. It cast shimmering specks of light on the trees around them.

Nidalee growled again, drawing his attention. She warned him to not try anything, eying his throat. The snarl took his attention away from the glimmering object to her, and he gazed at her with brown eyes. Nidalee opened her mouth to speak, and ask the question that was lingering in her, but only a growl escaped from her throat. She had forgot she couldn't speak as a cougar.'

Jayce cursed mentally to himself, he had managed to mess up real bad. The ambush from the dark creature with the hard carapace had taken him completely off guard as he had been sneaking into the jungle. It had been pure luck that it hadn't managed to severely injure him at the first attack.

He had reacted on instinct and slung the creature off him, and then blasted it away with a shock blast. The creature had been propelled through the jungle along with the shot, before the ball of energy had exploded in a powerful shock-wave and left a big round scorched clearing. His plan on going silently into the forest had been shattered in that instant, and now it was even worse, his eyes staring at the angry cougar on top of him.

He knew that if he tried to do something, the cougar would lunge at his throat it so clearly eyed. He actually wondered why it hadn't done so already. He had been shocked by the sudden ambush, it had been like it came out of nowhere, he cursed silently at himself for not paying more attention in his escape.

A slight growling sound came out of the cougar's throat before being accompanied with a look Jayce could only identify as confusion. He swallowed, if this was the one he thought it was, he'd have a load of trouble on his hands. He somehow wished it only was a wild cougar, and that he'd be dead soon. That way, Piltover wouldn't end up being involved.

A sudden breeze ran through the forest, forcing Jayce to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked into emerald green eyes that almost seemed to glow with magical power. They stared at him with a wild ferocity he didn't think fit the beauty of the owner.

On top of him, a young girl with dark-almost-black hair and toned muscles had appeared where the cougar had been mere moments earlier. Her face was spotless and slightly tanned, faded white paint could barely be seen over her cheekbones. She bared her teeth at him as the cougar had done before, revealing white and somewhat sharpened teeth. He noted to himself that even though they were a lot smaller, they looked at least as dangerous as the cougar's had.

His thoughts raced, he wasn't sure what he should do, how he could salvage the situation. He knew that most animals were territorial, and her, being raised by a pack of cougars would probably be even worse. She had claimed a whole jungle as her territory, and he knew from what he had learned about her, that she hated outsiders. He hoped at least some of what he had heard about her was exaggerated.

Nidalee moved in closer to the man, she felt a cold breeze run over her body, reminding herself she had forgot her clothes at the pond. She didn't pay it any heed, she didn't follow societies rules. Now only a hands length away, the wild girl pushed him further down into the ground. She held him down by his arms and had placed her knee on his chest. He opened his mouth as he was going to say something, but she cut him short.

"What are you doing here!?" She sneered in an accent Jayce had never heard before. It sounded like if a wild animal had suddenly gained the ability to speak.

He looked at her and calmed himself before answering. To show weakness towards a creature of the wild could very quickly end in his demise, and while he knew she was a human, like him, it was only on the outside. Mentally she was a wild animal, or atleast that was what he had heard. His eyes never left hers, so he had yet to notice the lack of clothing.

"I'm on a mission," he tried his best to keep up his composure.

"What mission?" She moved in closer to him and bared her teeth again, revealing pearl white teeth with much sharper edges than most people.

He paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase his explanation, knowing full well the next words he said would have a big factor in the coming events.

"There's a disturbance, in the jungle," he figured that the huntress had seen the creature that he had blasted moments earlier. It would make it a lot easier if he could turn his intrusion towards that, instead of his own mission.

Nidalee moved a little back, her eyes growing a little. The words had their desired effect, and made the situation a little less strained, but Jayce was still not sure what to make out of the expression. He tried to keep his eyes trained at the huntress on top of him, but his eyes drifted away from hers as his got tired. He blinked a few times, and when he looked up again he noticed that he was looking down on the huntress along her body instead of to her face, which she had moved. A lot of bare skin was showing, as would be expected from living in a damp jungle, but he noticed that she was in fact, not wearing anything.

He knew, from a animal point of view, clothes were unneeded, but it still caught him very off guard having the huntress undressed on top of him. He didn't want her to see that he was looking at her, in fear the situation would escalate, so he mentally kicked himself, and forced his eyes up to her face again. He felt the red rush in his cheeks, and while it was tough he eventually managed to look away.

Nidalee had not caught why the man she was sitting on top of had turned red after he had blinked with his eyes. Her curiosity pushed her to pursue, but she shoved it away and forced herself to concentrate on the situation. She needed to know more about what was happening.

"Explain." Nidalee glared angrily at the weird man. There was something about him that set him apart from most of the other humans she had encountered, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Umm..." Jayce started, not sure where to begin, or whether to tell her the truth at all. "T-there's a certain object inside the forest I'm looking for"

"I got that." The girl with the almost-black ponytail sneered at him.

"It's an object of great magical power, but I fear for where it might have gotten its power." Jayce explained, hoping the truth would pay off

"How?" Her expressions softened a little into something that looked more like confusion or curiosity.

"Have you ever heard of the void?" The huntress let go off him at the last word. She was just sitting on his chest now, her eyes staring bewildered into the jungle.

"Yes." She finally answered

* * *

**Dun, dun! So I might have given a not-so-very-subtle hint of where I'm going to take this story.**

**Also updated the summary.**

**Hope you guys liked Nidalee's flashback. I'm probably going to include more flashbacks as the story progresses. I've already created my own 'custom' back story to her, explaining more realistically how she learned to talk, and reinforcing her desire to protect the jungle.**

**Comments, reviews and feedback appreciated!**


	3. A Lingering Fear

**Author's note: **So I managed to complete this, and have it edited just before my one month 'deadline'. Great for me! In this chapter I'll introduce both Viktor(who's going to be a pretty big character, i think) and Zac(who's going to be a more 'supporting' character). Most of this chapter is about Nida and Jayce though.

* * *

**Chapter 3: A Lingering Fear**

"Silence! This court is settled!" A decisive voice, accompanied by the sound of a hammer slamming against wood, made its way from an old man, with obvious fake white hair and wrinkled skin. He sat upon a wooden throne, elevated above the audience in front of him, he had his eyes locked forwards toward a figure situated behind a table facing him on the right. The person in question hang with his mouth wide open.

The man was old, but younger than the man with the fake white hair who had just set silenced him, as well as the entire audience. His head was covered with short white hair that had disappeared almost completely from the top, leaving a moon of scalp visible. Wrinkles in his dry face moved around as he confused tried to decipher what had just happened. The wrinkles ran down from his eyes to his mouth, with more appearing over his brow. The attire he wore was simple, but elegant, a grey dress with a white shirt beneath, and polished leather shoes that anxiously tapped against the ground

The court house was made up by two rectangular groups of benches with a pathway between, both of which were made so the audience that now occupied the spot was facing the wooded throne. In front of the audience's place two tables accompanied by two very different characters sat, also facing the man on the wooden pedestal.

The man with the white wig let out a sigh as the words ended their journey in the wall on the far end of the court-room. He let his tired eyes survey over the crowd, and noted to himself the variety of people... and beings present. On the right side, about in the middle; a gigantic entity of almost transparent gooey matter sat, and seemed to be following the events closely, but remained seated without a word as he had been from the beginning of the tedious trial.

The judge took a deep breath before he started summarizing with an authoritative voice: "Stanwick's patent and credit regarding the creation of the steam automaton entity, officially recognized as 'Blitzcrank', is hereby revoked with immediate action. The patent will be given over to the real inventor, and Stanwick will be charged with first degree in copyright infringement. The discussion of a fitting punishment for such a heinous crime will be taken the day after tomorrow."

"WHAT!?" The old man with the moon on his head snapped back. His wrinkled face ran red, and he slammed both his fists down on the table in front of him, "I created 'waste reclamation model 95', not this..." He pointed to the table on the right of him, where the ominous figure of a man with a metal mask sat, and stared into empty air, "-abomination."

His face was not the only part of him that was covered, on his left hand, he wore an enormous metal glove that from time to time sparkled with an arc of electricity. One of his shoulders were covered by an over-sized shoulder-guard, reaching down around his chest, before returning at the back. Out of the shoulder-guard, an inauspicious mechanical arm stood. It swirled calmly around over its owner, with a small twitch here and there. An extensive cape of a deep blue color, split into two pieces down three quarters, hung from his back, barely visible from the chair he sat in. The rest of his clothing was a mix between metal and fabric, with the textile having gold rims along its edges. A metal rod, with a claw-like mechanism on top rested silently against the edge of the table.

Stanwick continued to stare angrily with his finger still pointed at the figure, who seemed as detached from the current situation, as he had been from the beginning of the trial. After almost half a minute of near complete silence, where the only sound was the heavy breathing of the thin haired man with the accusing finger; the man in the metal mask turned around to face the insult, "it's going by the name: 'Blitzcrank' now." His voice was void of all emotion, and sounded more like a machine than human. It was distorted and cold, and sent shivers down the spines of most of the audience.

"Like I damn care!" Stanwick shouted at the metallic man, he pushed himself of the table with his other hand, and turned to fully face the other man, earning a fist from the mechanized arm as the only reaction.

"Stanwick! Restrain yourself!" The judge, who by now had witnessed in silence, broke in before something started. He was more afraid for the collateral damage than the actual amount of injuries Stanwick would have sustained if he decided to follow up on his aggressive stance, he couldn't really care less for the patent thief.

"Aghh!" Stanwick took a step over to the man with the metal mask, stopping mere centimeters away from its cold metal surface, "You'll pay for this, Viktor." He sneered the words at the mask, and stood still for a second, expecting a response, but was left staring at the unnaturally still and silent person. With another growl he turned his back to Viktor, and stormed out of the room with many curious eyes following him.

A second later the sound of a door being slammed hard, ricocheted from the back of the room. Waiting another second to let the sound fall completely dead, Viktor rose up from his position and turned against the audience: "Justice have been served, but too late. The glorious evolution will come." The exact emotions behind the words were hard to decipher, if they even existed, and the message cryptic. The judge shifted nervously in his chair, unsure how to interpret the words.

With a confused and wary audience staring silently at him, Viktor began walking towards the same door his former professor had gone through. Several people in the crowd were whispering among themselves as the mechanical man strode through the room. They were all thinking the same thought: what did he mean by his cryptic message? He had been talking about his 'glorious revolution' for a long time, but never offered more information beside calling it: progress or evolution.

A couple of seconds later the large wooden door, split in the middle and attached on hinges on both sides, slung open. It shut closed mere moments after.

At once the door had stopped moving, a certain towering, 'entity' arose from the ranks of the audience. It was unlike everybody and everything else in the court room, but still seemed to fit in among the various characters present. Its body consisted of masses of a green, transparent gelatin-like substance. It was a good half meter taller than the rest of the crowd. By twisting and stretching its appendages over the people still at their seats, it began making its way over to the pathway to the door. Most of the watchers looked up to see a distorted image of the ceiling through the clear bulk with surprised eyes. With a final twist and leap, the gelatinous being landed on the walkway between the two groups of benches. It then quickly made its way over to, and out of the door.

Outside, a good distance away from the court house, Viktor stood. He stared ahead with a slight tilt upwards into the smog that enveloped the skyline. The smog... He had once believed he would be the one that would remove it, the one that would make the city look as good as he knew it deserved. That had been a long time ago. The old memories only appeared because of the closure he had gotten from the court.

The gelatinous man exited the building, and let his eyes survey the area. It didn't take long before he spotted the figure of a man in a cape with the shadow of a mechanical arm swirling above. With massive steps from his sheer size, he approached the person. He put a hand, formed out of the green article that the he consisted off, on the shoulder opposite to the one that housed the artificial metal limb. "Viktor... Justice have been served, Stanwick will spend the rest of his rotten life in prison. Are you not satisfied?" The voice was deep, but calm and in stark contrast to his appearance, he sounded concerned.

"It's a closure, but also a new opening. A hindrance that has been put out. It will allow me to bring forth the future." Viktor had acknowledged the presence of the other being, but made no other indication to show it.

"Can you not give up on this revolution of yours and revert back? The people of Zaun needs more heroes, not mad scientists." The towering entity continued while taking his hand off Viktor. He made a silent sigh where he stood, slightly behind the other person.

Viktor turned to face the speaker, he wasn't shocked when he looked right at a green, transparent mass of jelly, not that it would show on his mask anyway. "Zac, the revolution will come, and you can't talk me out of it. My transformation is a perfection, and it is permanent." His words were spoken like a prophet, and Zac knew he wouldn't be able to talk him out of it, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

Without a word more, Viktor began walking away from the courthouse. Zac let out a sigh and let his arms drop a a little, before he followed the silhouette that had begun to disappear in the smog that always hung about the streets. Zac hurried his step as to not lose the man. Together they begun heading away from the city core. Above them, the light luminance of the sun could barely be seen through the dark clouds.

"You know I'm not going to allow you to do anything that will hurt the citizens of Zaun, right?" Zac walked slightly ahead of Viktor and gave the man behind the mask a hard stare. It was his duty, to protect the ones who couldn't, and if Viktor couldn't be persuaded to revert back, he would at least make sure no-one suffered because of him.

"It won't hurt them. It'll bring progress." Viktor held his gaze straight forward, not even bothering to give the gelatinous entity an eye. His feet covered by metal boots clanked along the hard stone ground, accompanied by the splats from Zac's bare feet.

"You'll hurt them if you force them." Zac let the serious undertone of his statement flavor his words. They had walked by the most dense part of the city now, and the smog had slightly begun to dissipate.

"No pain, no gain." Viktor responded with voice of cold automaton heritage.

"I'm giving you a warning here, Viktor..." Zac felt the urge to pull the metal mask off the man and give him a well earned punch in his face, but managed to restrain himself. He reminded himself of his parents: _"Violence shouldn't be used to solve matters that can be fixed without."_

"I'll take it into consideration." The answer was uncharacteristically thoughtful, but Zac was still not sure whether Viktor just said it to avoid further discussion, or if he actually told the truth. He hoped for the latter, and decided to drop his aggressive stance. He shifted his angle instead , to see if he could maybe extract some more information from the apathetic man.

"So, what exactly is this 'glorious revolution' of yours?" The question came off aloof, Zac had asked that specific one for so long, he wasn't expecting anonest answer anymore. The two Zaunite's had arrived at Viktor's laboratory by now, and were standing outside a garage door, a single magical light hang above, attached to the wall. It looked like every other Zaunite building, and blended in so well no-one except the ones who had been there before would find it.

"It's progress through technology, I...-" Viktor was interrupted mid-sentence by a call for his name. Disgruntled by the interruption Zac looked over to see a message bot striding towards them. The bot consisted of a big box with four simple mechanical legs. On the top, a robotic head poked forth, turning to the sides with even intervals. "Important message to 'Viktor' from Piltover." The robot spoke in a monotone voice. Out from an opening in the front, a letter was sticking out.

Viktor grabbed the letter and preceded to open it with a precision laser burn from the mechanical hand living in his shoulder guard. The robot quickly left with the sound of metal clanking on hard stone as he pulled the paper out of the smoking envelope.

Zac cocked, what to him would be an eyebrow and put his hands in cross as he watched Viktor pull out the message. It was unusual to receive letters from the rival city-state.

"Well?" Zac looked down on the man.

"I need to leave Zaun." Viktor kept his gaze on the piece of paper, Zac bet he even saw a slight tremble going through it.

"Why?" Zac asked

"An opportunity has presented itself, I need to act." With that Viktor opened the door to his laboratory, and disappeared inside. He shut the door immediately, leaving a puzzled Zac outside.

"I'm worried Zaun..." He whispered as if the city was a living being. He turned around away from the closed door, and let the light illuminate his back, before his massive green legs began to carry him away from the dim magical light, into the foggy city streets.

* * *

"The void..." She let her thoughts take words. The little she knew about it, it was a dark place of horrific creatures and forbidden magic. She shuddered at the thought, because she feared what would happen if it took root in the jungle. The question about the stranger also existed, but for now, he felt like an ally. There was something, however, that didn't add up, _why was he there?_

Together the two characters walked through the jungle. Jayce had barely mentioned the location of the crystal before she had jumped off him and headed away from him in its direction. Unsure of how to interpret the girl, he had quickly followed, in any way; that would be the way he would have gone too.

The jungle was damp, and green. Thick branches crawling out of enormous trees blocked the sun that Jayce guessed would be in about its midday position at this time. He noticed that the jungle always seemed to appear darker than it should, as if something absorbed the photons that should otherwise have lit it up. On another observation he also noticed that the area they were walking in, or more specifically: Nidalee was walking in, always seemed to be both brighter and less intimidating than the surrounding area. Whether or not this as just an illusion, or a real thing, he was still unsure about.

Continuing behind the cougar girl, Jayce felt the sweat running down inside his attire, which was meant for a whole different climate. In front of him, the huntress walked in her bare skin, not even offering what he thought was an overwhelming dampness and heat, a thought. His eyes had continued to slip down on her revealed features, and he was embarrassed for how many times he had caught himself prying down on her exposed figure. Intent of providing a distraction away from her tanned skin, he forced forth a theme to talk about.

"So, what do you know about it?" He made sure he voiced his question loud enough for her to hear., in response she stopped her stride, and looked back.

"It's dark..." She remarked in a soft voice Jayce couldn't really figure out, it made him think of a scared kitten. Without offering anything more she turned around and continued her walk, her ponytail gently whipping at her back.

Jayce let out a sigh, she was so different than anyone else he had met. She had no reservations for social behavior, and so: in one way she was truly free, and he admired her for it, but he also knew that he would have no idea how to approach her. She was simply not readable.

"That all? How would you know?" Jayce was surprised by his own question, of course everybody thought that the void was a dark and inhuman place, but he only knew of two people that had actually been in contact with it, and they had never bothered to describe what it looked like, only what it would bring.

"I just do, I feel. The creature with the red claws; it tells us to fear the darkness." The answer was disjointed, and felt more like thoughts than speech, Jayce wouldn't be surprised if it actually was.

"Do you know anything more?" Nidalee turned to him while she voiced her question, and let Jayce catch up with her. He was genuinely surprised over the peaceful attitude she held against him.

"No I don't. Only that it won't be good if my fears are confirmed." A new nightmare appeared in his head, one about monsters and abominations, it was even worse than his other nightmare of metal and flames.

"And those are?" She asked as she was climbing over a fallen tree that was in their way.

"Of death and destruction." The words weighed heavily, it basically summed up his nightmare.

With a firm hold, Nidalee landed on the other side of the broken tree, she let soft words escape from her mind, "Darkness..."

Jayce who had just begun to climb the log, barely heard the whisper, but noticed the softness of the words, they were light, like a leaves in the wind. He didn't pry, realizing they were most likely not meant for him.

"It's a future without... light..." Jayce couldn't fully find the words to describe it, and ended on the antonym of darkness. He hoped she would understand.

Landing a lot more unsteady on the jungle ground, Jayce tried to regain his balance, he barely saw the silhouette of the huntress in front of him., and upped his pace after recovering to regain the lost distance.

"Why?" She asked when he caught up with her. The expression on her face was so different from the one she had when they first met. In this Nidalee he saw a scared and confused young girl. It pained him to see her like that more than he would have thought.

"Why, what?" He gave his softest and most comforting voice to her.

"Why does it exist?" She held a firm hold on her voice, but beneath Jayce could feel it crack. It was very surprising to him to see her like this. It quickly became obvious she feared the void greatly, _but why?_

"It just... does. No-one really knows." The answer was unsure, because Jayce barely knew himself. After the words had disappeared, both of them stared ahead into the dark jungle. Previously the jungle had seen as an unforgiving and hostile place, but together with the huntress, the fear seemed to disappear. It only reinforced his belief of how intertwined the girl was with the jungle.

Together they walked in silence for some time. Jayce wasn't sure exactly where they were heading anymore, there was no path, and his positioning device had been broken in the ambush, but nevertheless, NIdalee held a firm stride, and Jayce only felt compelled to follow. The only thing of his equipment, other than the hammer, that still worked was the energy reader that gave the direction of the crystal. A black arrow pointed to the front of them, giving him a reassurance that they were on the right path.

On their right side, a big moss-covered hill stood, covered in plants in colors that Jayce had never even heard off, much less seen. One of the plants was made up of a single stilk with a flower with petals of a deep purple color on top. Out from each of the petals, leaves; the same size as his foot grew out, and in a manner that seemed impossible, actually pointed slightly upwards. Nidalee walked past it without offering it a thought.

The hill quickly became a lost sight and new memory, then Nidalee who'd seemed strangely thoughtful, turned to him and with a suspicious look asked him.

"Why are you here?" The version of her that reminded him of a scared kitten was gone, replaced by a feral animal.

"In the jungle?" Jayce felt he had to thread vary, if he wanted to avoid a confrontation. He reminded himself that she was far different than other personalities, which might explain her sudden change in attitude.

"Yes." It came with a hard tone.

"Because there's a threat here." Jayce tried to be diplomatic.

"You live far away, this is not your hunt." Nidalee seemed to almost sneer at him.

"This concerns the future, and the future; is my business:" It came out a little harder than he would have liked, and he feared for the short-term friendly relationship they had for a while.

"You're withholding something." Nidalee stopped and bared her teeth at him. Jayce kept his mouth closed for a second. He wondered what had caused the escalation.

After a silence of loaded air between them, Jayce, having made up his mind, spoke: "I'll be honest with you. You don't deserve these mind games of the 'civilized'." The way the last word had sounded seemed to harmonize on of her strings, and she calmed down a little.

"Speak then." Nidalee let her teeth disappear away from view.

Jayce rolled his shoulders a little before he started: "Before my time in the League... I studied a crystal of immense power, that was stolen from me by a man gone mad by injustice and science." The recollection of his memory gave him a bitter aftertaste.

"Viktor." Nidalee stated her knowledge.

"Yea, I'm surprised you know." Jayce tried to lighten the mood a little with some positivity, and gave her an awkward smile.

"There's an advantage in knowing." Nidalee responded bluntly, keeping her hostility towards him.

Disappointed, but not surprised, Jayce continued: "After my fight with Viktor, I went back to my notes. Something about the crystal had irked at my mind when I had been studying it, but I never had time to investigate."

"And, that was?" Nidalee responded, more interested than hostile now, much to Jayce's relief.

"That it couldn't have originated in this world, its composition was... off." Jayce was searching for the right words to describe it, words that would allow her to understand.

"What does this have to do with your 'intrusion' here?" Nidalee put extra weight on the next to last word, as to highlight the fact how she disliked intruders in her jungle. It made Jayce vary, and he knew he had to get to the point soon.

"I fear... that a new crystal has spawned, here." Jayce opened his hands and motioned towards the direction they were heading in, as well as the jungle as a whole

"What will this cause?" Nidalee seemed angered, but luckily Jayce didn't feel as if she was angry towards him, at least no more than she already was.

Jayce turned to face her, he had a serious look upon his face: "If... and this is just if, my fears are confirmed, this can cause a rift between our world and the void..." He let the lump that had formed in his throat slide down as he finished, he didn't like to confess it, but he was scared.

Nidalee turned away from him, and looked bewildered into the jungle, much like the first time he had mentioned the void to her. Jayce wasn't sure what to do about it, he knew so little about her, so little about why she seemed to flinch at the mention of the void.

Still keeping her gaze away from him, she spoke with the same soft voice of leaves in the wind: "The creature... that was one?" The realization of it tugged at her.

"Not sure, but I think it was..."Jayce lowered his voice to match the temperament of hers.

"The League? Won't they help?" Nidalee turned her hazel colored eyes at him, and let her head a little on the side and looked up to him with glossy eyes. It was for some reason very off-putting for him to see her like that.

"I don't trust them. It is them who have summoned creatures from the void into this world. They claim to be good, but they're after something bad." Jayce held a firm tone, he wasn't sure how the huntress perceived the league, he only knew his own.

"I agree." Nidalee answered.

A distance away from them, the loud rustling of a river could be heard , and Jayce noticed, to his discomfort, that the dampness seemed to increase. Together, they walked towards it, still on track with the energy reader. The conversation between them had fallen silent, and Jayce didn't like it, he was still unsure about the situation between them. She shifted so quickly between hostility and neutrality, intent on at least trying to make some idle chatter to improve their newly formed and very strained relationship, he asked her of a theme his curiosity had wondered about.

"How exactly did you... learn to speak?" Jayce regretted the question immediately, it was a personal question that he should have let stay silent, but done was done, and he clenched his teeth while he awaited her response.

Nidalee turned towards him, her eyes seemed lost, "I..." She turned away from him to the river that could barely be seen on their left flank through a mass of trees. Her mind was flashing again, the question, tied up with the recent events proved to be a challenge for her mental state. Her feet stopped moving without her even realizing it, and the memories of her past came rushing through her as they had done only hours ago.

**PAST**

_She was a young girl again, her exact age of course unknown. She stood in the outskirt of the known jungle again, a distance away from the spot she had met the young couple some days prior. Their impression had lingered on her mind, reminding her so much of a life she knew only as past and foggy memories. She wanted relief from the pain it had caused her, she wanted to turn back into the predator she had been all these years, but now was denied._

_Nidalee quickly found the spot the scene had gone down in, their scent was almost gone by now, only present on some of the plants there. Their prints, however, were still there in the soil. She studied them closer, they were no where like anything she had ever seen before, long and oval in shape, with no marks of claws or paws, just smooth surface. To her, they were so unfamiliar, but also so familiar; her eyes going behind her, where her own prints were sunk into the ground. They were smaller, held roughly the same shape, but unlike the prints she was following, they didn't leave flat ground behind. Hers were more bumpy,, with each of her new paws marking the ground._

_The trail led her further away, they went on and on, leading her away from the known parts and into the unknown, where she had never dared to go before. With her newfound form, she managed to fight her fear, and press on. _

_Finally, after following the steps for what seemed like the same amount of time it would take to track down a prey, slay it and eat it, she'd finally reached an end. The trail had led her to an area where the jungle simply seemed to end, like: at once. She had been too focused on following the dwindling prints that she almost didn't realize or understand why the ground suddenly seemed so much brighter. She looked up only to have her orbs of crystalline gemstones blinded by a much bigger ball of white flare sending beams of radiance through the now unobstructed air above her._

_Clinching away from the rays of light that was chipping away at her emeralds, Nidalee turned her eyes forward. No more trees, no more underwood. She was looking at a great open plain of green grass, it confused her, it didn't fit in with the rest of the jungle. Vary over the sudden shift of environment, she looked back from where she had come from. To her relief the dense jungle that always gave her comfort was still there behind her, waiting like a mother for her child._

_Beyond, over a hill in the distance of the plain, she could see a trail of grey clouds rise upwards to join their cleaner cousins that were stealing the light away from the ground below. The sight gave her memory a nudge, releasing emotions of warmth and security she had trouble placing. Intent on finding the source she forced herself to continue, with her mind starting to fuzz up, and her heart beating with the same intervals as droplets of water during the rain._

_Moving through the high grass with ease, it didn't take long before she had crossed the plain to the hill, which she was now climbing. It had taken longer than expected to ascend the small mountain of grass, but after several minutes of struggling against her own decision to investigate, she was finally at the top._

_Crouched down in the meadow, with just enough opening for herself to poke her head head out and get a look at the plain below, she got a view of the source of the grey clouds. The sight that met her was a very new one, a sight she was sure she would remember for the rest of her life. _

_A number of structures, built from logs that were surely to come from the jungle, stood grouped around a much bigger building of the same material. The trail of smoke slowly rose up from a hole in the middle of it, and even from the distance she was in, she could smell the flavor of burning wood. The buildings had enormous dried leaf on top of them, bound together with rope._

_It surprised her how she seemed to know what everything was, but at the same time didn't really know. Her mind churned on about her memories, desperately trying to make sense of everything and connect the past to the present._

_In between the structures of stacked logs, she could see the outlines of creatures walking on two legs, tall and sleek. She knew what they were now, her past memories reminding her, humans... like her, only still not like her._

_Curiosity taking the better of her, the young girl with the ponytail of almost black hair began to descend the hill and move in towards the buildings. The sound of voices increased in volume for each step she took, some of the words she could make sense out off, but most were unknown for her. _

_Prowling through in the tall meadow, it didn't take long before she stood right beside one of the structures. Vary, she stealthy sneaked around the buildings, making sure not to be seen or heard._

_Each of her heart beats were pressing against her temples, like they tried escape from the bulging vein present beneath her skin._

_Getting further into the village, Nidalee made sure to keep hiding spots open to herself and all her senses at full alert. Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps and voice heading her way. Looking around her for hiding spots, she eyed a dark corner lodged between two of the structures of dead trees. In front of the corner a stack of dead logs and branches was placed, making an ideal place to keep herself from discovery._

_Within moments, she could skim the outlines of two men in the distance. They approached in a straight line to the hut on her right side. The first one seemed old, while Nidalee didn't really know how a human would look like old, she somehow managed to get the feeling. Both of them wore nothing over the waistline, showing off toned muscles beneath their tanned skin. The older of the two had numerous scars over his body, most notably an almost healed one on his right shoulder, the other one had no such scars. As they came closer, she didn't dare to peek forth anymore, and hid completely behind her cover._

"_So what do you think father?" The younger of the two asked. He kept a calm voice._

"_I'm not sure, I've lived here for many years, and I've traveled far, but I've never heard of a girl living on her own in the jungle." The elder casually scratched his chin as he thought about how likely the story would be. _

_Nidalee heard them stop right outside her hiding place in the dark corner between two of the structures of dead trees. The younger of the two men looked up to the other, and asked: "Then, what do you think they saw?_

"_Hard to say, they got very little reason to lie. So... I believe them." He motioned over to the barrel Nidalee was sitting behind,"Go get some firewood for dinner son." _

"_Sure, father." Nidalee hadn't understood the weird noises they made, but noticed that one of the footsteps came closer to her. She felt her heart beginning to panic, beating as if she was in a fight for her life, which she might get into soon if she didn't do anything._

_Keeping as low as possible she hoped the man would leave, but he didn't. Finally he stopped on the other side of the stack of logs, he reached down to them, Nidalee held her breath. He reached down to one of the large ones that laid on top, and picked it up, but the moment the log had disappeared from the stack, Nidalee was exposed to view. "What the.?!" The young man shouted out, loosing his grip on the log he had picked up, so it dropped down on the ground, forcing him to jump back as to evade the mass. _

_Nidalee had looked up at the man the moment he had exposed her, her eyes were wide, and with her mind in panicked disarray, she acted on instinct and jumped out of cover, kicking the man in his chest before jumping off him back to the way she had entered the village. Her eyes ran with salty water, and she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Many other people saw her run, but no-one seemed to chase after her, they just looked confused at the young girl in the strips of leather._

_Within minutes she reached the outskirt of the jungle, and disappeared into the calming trees and underwood._

**PRESENT**

"Nidalee?" Jayce looked quizzing at the woman who had just mentally disappeared from the present.

Snapping back from her memories, Nidalee looked over to him, not realizing the time she had just stood silent, "That's personal..." She answered the question that to her was asked just seconds ago.

"I..." Jayce started, but was interrupted by Nidalee,

"Let's just find this crystal."

* * *

**I really enjoy these flashbacks, almost makes me want to write a fanfic solely about it(maybe I'll do?). I've had some discussion about the future plot, as it is now I'm going to veer 'off course' from the current lore, and go into my own. I'll be basing everything on the current setting though, I'm just creating an alternative path for a future.**

**I encourage everybody to write a 'review', it's always nice to hear others opinion, and it's the only way I can realize something I can't see on my own. It doesn't have to be long, just voice your thoughts :)**

**PS: Thanks to 'Blargmaster13' for taking the time to read through and comment. And especially 'Kiravu' for managing to squeeze in the time to edit for me :)**


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